Poetry Analysis
AP Lit and Comp
Spring 2013
You will be writing an analysis of either three poems that have a similar theme or three poems by the same poet. You
will read your poems and then develop your own thesis: what common ideas or themes do you see in all three poems
or what literary devices does the poet use to develop a similar tone. Remember, theme and tone are the two things the
AP readers love.
Your choices are listed below, and, yes, you must work with these poems/poets. Your essay should be at least three
full pages typed in MLA format and will be due ________________________________.
You may choose to do three poems from the same poet and those poets are
Emily Dickinson
Adrienne Rich
William Carlos Williams
John Donne
Robert Frost
A.E. Housman
OR, you may choose to do one of these sets of poems. Each set has four, you must choose three to finally write about.
Portrait 1020
Sadie and Maude 948
Snow White and the Seven Deadly Sins 965
Ending 820
I Go Back to May 1937 983
Siren Song 943
The Victims 984
Women Who Love Angels 950
War is Kind 952
Rice Will Grow Again 953
Guns 960
The Man He Killed 670
A song in the front yard 949
The Road Not Taken 734
Theme for English B 972
Small Town with One Road 1005
On Reading Poems to a Senior Class 945
A Study of Reading Habits 671
The History Teacher 769
Sonnet 798
Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter 990
I knew a woman 997
To His Coy Mistress 730
My Last Duchess 775
The Red Hat 967
My Son, My Executioner 967
The Youngest Daughter 1003
The Writer 750
Aunt Sue’s Stories 972
Our Whole Life 992
Sign for my Father 948
Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers 828
Dulce et Decorum Est 651
The Second Coming 1022
The world is too much with us 694
The Journey of the Magi 786
Musee des Beaux Arts 944
Blurry Cow 1012
Out, Out 779
One Art 698
NOTE, you are not writing about each poem individually. You are writing about a commonality
between the poems and using three poems to support your thesis about the three works as a
whole.